1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an accessory bracket that may be attached to portable beds commonly used in military type field hospitals or litters, preferably litters that meet NATO standards, for the attachment of medical equipment commonly used in patient care and/or the transport of patients between locations via ground, air or seaborne conveyances.
2. Description of the Related Art
The standard bed used in military type field hospitals is portable and may be quickly set up for use or collapsed for stowage or transport. The standard military bed permits elevation of the patient's head and provides attachment points (holes) for a writing platform and an IV pole.
The prior art IV pole material is tubular and is formed from plural parts that can be telescoped relative to one another to vary the length of the IV pole. The fully extended prior art IV pole can have a length in excess of three feet. Significantly, the prior art IV poles were designed long before many currently essential portable equipment items became available. Thus, the prior art IV poles were never intended for mounting the portable equipment items that currently are used in military type field hospitals. Hence, the prior art IV poles do not have the requisite strength for supporting many portable equipment items that are used widely in military type field hospitals. The thin-wall tubular material of the prior art IV pole easily is subject to compression damage from attachment bracket clamps and is increasingly subject to shear or bending when equipment is mounted at positions higher up the pole. The field hospital portable bed has no provision for the safe attachment of medical equipment items.
The current standard of patient care has evolved considerably over the years. Military type field hospitals currently perform sophisticated and complex procedures comparable to procedures performed in civilian and fixed-facility hospitals. A significant limitation in providing this sophisticated level of care in a military field hospital involves the safe deployment of medical equipment in a manner that facilitates operator access and attachment to the patient.
Field hospitals typically have soft walls that are unable to mount medical equipment items. Accordingly, medical equipment and supplies currently are placed for use, peripherally, as close to the bed as possible. This existing disposition of medical equipment and supplies severely limits access and congests the immediate area by interposing wires, cables, connectors, hoses and tubing in the space between patient and equipment that desirably would be occupied by the care giver. The inherent risk in such an environment is entanglement of care givers, damage to equipment and inadvertent disconnections of patient-attached wires, cables, connectors, hoses and tubing.
Attempts have been made during the last twenty years to organize and clear the clutter in field hospitals with limited success. U.S. Pat. No. 6,842,922 discloses a Special Medical Emergency Evacuation Device (SMEED), which is designed to organize equipment and eliminate clutter principally during en route care of patients. The SMEED was designed to interface with a NATO litter and can be used only in a field hospital affixed to a mobile transporter. This option allows for the safe attachment of medical equipment items and obviates the need for the standard bed described above. However, the NATO litter has a stiff and uncomfortable patient-contacting surface. Furthermore, the NATO litter has a small surface area for the patient to lie upon and requires optional attachments to elevate the patient's head.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,626,151 discloses a device referred to as the LSTAT that also was designed principally for en route care. The LSTAT is a very heavy platform that contains a suite of medical products within a housing that occupies the dead-space beneath a NATO litter. The standard NATO litter attaches and locks into place atop the LSTAT so that the patient, the NATO litter, and the LSTAT may be carried or transported together as one integrated unit. However, the combination of the LSTAT, the NATO litter and the patient can weigh more than 350 lbs and requires six persons to carry. However, the LSTAT has been relegated to limited use in field hospitals due to its heavy weight and generally is not used for transport. The LSTAT suffers from many of the same deficiencies as the SMEED. More particularly, the LSTAT is attached to the standard NATO litter, which has a stiff uncomfortable patient-contacting surface material. Additionally, the NATO litter has a small surface area for the patient to lie upon, and requires optional attachments to elevate the patients head.
A relatively new device called Porta-Wall is being evaluated for possible use in field hospitals. Porta-Wall is designed to mount medical equipment, accessories and peripheral support elements (such as bins, lighting, electrical distribution, etc.) while maintaining a small “footprint” in the bed area.
With the possible exception of Porta-Wall, these few unsuccessful attempts for safely and effectively deploying medical equipment and supplies in field hospitals have remained almost entirely unchanged.
The NATO litter has a standard geometry and is characterized by an area of canvas supported between to two parallel poles. Modified versions of the NATO litter exist and may have: metal poles instead of wood poles, removable/replaceable handles instead of handles that are integral to the poles, nylon mesh instead of canvas, decontaminable mesh instead of nylon or canvas and litters that fold in half or in quarters for easy stowage, storage, or transport. The NATO litters typically are used to evacuate injured and/or wounded patients from the location of their injury or their most recent point of care to another care facility for treatment.
Many non-collapsible litters remain in use. However, improved versions of the NATO style litter have evolved mechanically and materially. The surface material of choice on the current generation of NATO litters is a decontaminable mesh. Additionally, the litter poles on many currently used NATO style litters have at least one hinge that permits the pole to be folded in half or quarters. When these litters are assembled and are ready-for-patient-use each hinge on each pole of the currently used NATO style litter has a round socket that can accommodate an accessory bracket. Litters that fold in half have two such sockets and litters that fold in quarters have six sockets. The diameters of the sockets in the current generation of NATO litters are intended to correspond dimensionally to the peripheral holes in field hospital portable beds and to be universally compatible with the above-described telescoping IV Poles.
Medical personnel desirably should monitor the patient's status to ensure timely delivery of proper medical treatment and/or to maintain the patient in a sufficiently stable condition to allow for safe transport. Unfortunately, the two poles and the canvas, nylon or decontaminable mesh patient support of a litter do not readily permit attachment of medical equipment items. Instead, equipment usually is placed atop the patient. However, equipment placed atop the patient imbalances the litter, is prone to fall off and generally requires a third or fourth person to help stabilize and carry the litter. Using the patient as the equipment carrying platform does not benefit patient care or safety and is not recommended under any circumstances.
Devices and techniques have been developed in recent years to transport injured/wounded patients. These devices include the above-described SMEED and LSTAT and the MIRF, which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,331. The LSTAT and MIRF are undesirable in that each carries a suite of equipment items even though all of these items are not necessary in every situation. Another drawback to the LSTAT and MIRF is that each has a fixed size and shape whether or not any of its equipment items are in use. The unused equipment items unnecessarily add weight and the same amount of space is taken up regardless of how many items are utilized. This weight disadvantage limits how far-forward to the point of injury the LSTAT and SMEED can go, and also drains assets by requiring the use of additional manpower to carry. Vertical space is at a premium in military evacuation platforms. Ground vehicles, fixed wing aircraft and helicopters employ rack or stanchion mounting systems to stack casualties. Thus, these vehicles can transport multiple patients, but, as a consequence, caregiver access to the patient and equipment is limited. The size and weight of an LSTAT or MIRF imposes limits on the number of patients that may be evacuated in any given type of transport vehicle. The SMEED device is much smaller and lighter than LSTAT and MIRF and can be custom configured to carry only the needed equipment items. The LSTAT and MIRF sit below the patient. The SMEED, on the other hand attaches atop the patient. This disposition of the SMEED creates access issues and the SMEED device cannot be height-adjusted or removed from the litter during transport if required by circumstances. SMEED is considerably lighter than LSTAT and MIRF. However, the top mounted equipment set of SMEED makes a “loaded” litter considerably more top heavy and requires a four-man team to carry safely.
Each of the above approaches has a unique usefulness. However, there is a need for a simple and lightweight means to affix equipment items directly to the litter. There also is a need to provide a means to affix equipment items to the litter without requiring the litter to be carried by more than two individuals.